Cases City Digital the 3rd fastest growing company in Finland, 61st fastest growing company in Europe. Improve Media - Largest advertisement network

1. Ship in harbour may be safe, but this is not what ship is built for.
Choose your destination . Draft your route.
Remember: Success is not a destination, it’s the journey.
Ilkka O. Lavas, City, Improve Media at Aalto University 2016. Photo by Riza Nugraha (CC BY 2.0)
Identifying and evaluating market
opportunities.

2. Entrepreneurial methods
Photo by Lavas @ Burma Sprite Clone In Burma / Myanmar Is example of innovative method.

3. Ilkka O. Lavas
• 3 books about entrepreneurship
”Unstoppable Entrepreneurship,
Amazon”
• Partner, board member, investor
– Portfolio of 15 businesses
– 10+ aquisitions done
– 4 exits
• Young Entrepreneur of the year
2009 in ’Southern Finland’
• 37years, 2 sons, 1 wife,
2,8k+ fb, 1.1k insta
2,7k+ linkedin,
Snapchat @ilkkalavas
5,5k+ twitter @lavas
@lavas

4. EXITs:
Import & Export software
@lavas

5. Entrepreneurial Marketing: Agility
• Agility as a success
factor?
• Lean Startup methods
• What is agility?
Photo by Tarja Ryhannen Mitrovic /
Flickr

6. http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/business_model_canvas_poster.pdf

9. MARKETING IS A
CONTINUALLY OPTIMIZING
LEARNING PROCESS
Secrets of Entrepreneurial marketing

11. AIDA
• A - Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of
the customer.
• I - Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on
and demonstrating advantages and benefits
(instead of focusing on features, as in traditional
advertising).
• D - Desire: convince customers that they want
and desire the product or service and that it will
satisfy their needs.
• A - Action: lead customers towards taking action
and/or purchasing.

14. Choose your
Target Audience
(Segment)
A- Attention
(Awareness)
Marketing message,
Getting noticed (push)
I - Interest: raise
customer interest by
focusing on and
demonstrating
advantages and benefit
D - Desire: convince
customers that they
want and desire the
product or service and
that it will satisfy their
needs.
A - Action: lead
customers towards
taking action and/or
purchasing.
Outbound marketing
© Ilkka Lavas 2012 W3 Group Finland Oy

15. Inbound marketing loop
1. Attract traffic
2. Convert visitors to
leads
3. Convert leads to sales
4. Turn customers into
repeat higher margin
customers
5. Analyze for continuous
improvement
1. Get found
2-4. Convert
5. Analyze.

16. Target Audience
A- Attention
(Awareness)
Marketing message,
Getting noticed (push)
I - Interest: raise
customer interest by
focusing on and
demonstrating
advantages and benefit
D - Desire: convince
customers that they
want and desire the
product or service and
that it will satisfy their
needs.
A - Action: lead
customers towards
taking action and/or
purchasing.
Create
Audience
Tell your audience
(tweet, facebook,
email)
Convert
visitors to
leads
Convert
leads
to sales
Convert
buyers to buy
more and
create
recurring
sales
Collect Data,
Analyze, Learn and
develop
Outbound marketing
Inbound marketing
© Ilkka Lavas 2012 W3 Group Finland Oy www.w3.fi
Analysis

19. 1. Choose your segment
Where to start ?

20. The business model canvas
Something
Somebody
Who?
START BY
THINKING
TO WHOM
SHOULD I SELL

21. Customer Segment Example
Finns in Finland
5.400.000 ppl

22. Customer Segment Example
Finns living abroad
400.000 Finns +
Kids 800.000 Finns
United States 700,000
Sweden 470,000
Canada 131,040
Brazil 90,000

23. OFFERING – MARKET -FIT
Case: Suomikauppa.fi

24. Search For business idea
• Search for business idea
– Living abroad
– Need for Finnish food and products
– There was no online-shop where you can buy Finnish
products.
– Relatives sent Finnish Chocolate Fazer Sininen and
Juhla Mokka Coffee. Difficult.
• Common sources for new ideas: Customers,
Employees, Friends, Other Entrepreneurs,
Magazines, Seminars, Common-Life-
Problems/Situations

25. Product
Customer
Jobs
Customer Pains
Customers
Gains
Is it safe to order online?
What happens with the customs?
How long time do I have to wait?
How much do I have to pay?
I want to have Finland –party for
my finnish kids.
I want to teach my kids how to
make rye bread yourself.
I want Fazer Sininen Chocolate
Now.
I need to feed my babyborn.
Eat something luxury
Happy family.
Kids educated with finnish food-culture
Experience
Enjoy finnish candies
Safe milk for the baby
Delivered directly to home
Safe for my kids. (vs china)

27. Timing
• We we not first. There was one pioneer who
failed. We learned from pioneer and harvested
the benefits.
• Payment systems? Online payment?
• Are your customers used to pay online?
• Are your customers willing to buy?
• Do your customers know of your existance? How
do I reach my customers?
• Do your customers already recognize the need of
your offering?

28. Be trustworthy
• ”Finland is not a country, it is a club.”, everyone knows
somebody who knows you.
• You can sell easily once, but to sell the second time you
must have been successful with the first delivery.
• Returning policies
• Customer service
• Good relations with the customs
• Import licences (US FDA, Australia etc)
• Export licences
• Reliability even during high peak seasons

29. Be ready to learn
• You should never become too self-assured that you
think don’t need to learn anything anymore.
• Learning is about the joy of imperfection.
• Listen to your customers, our first 400 products were
from our customer wish list, now more than 3000
products.
• Our customer were more experienced than us that
they want Fazer Chocolate, Taffel Chips and Harwall
Jaffa delivered to more than 100 countries.
• We did not think that many Finns can’t write or read
Finnish properly anymore if they have lived 20+ years
abroad.

30. Our predessor failed, and we did learn
• 1996-1998 there the pioneer with smaller
offering at the same market.
• They did not meet the needs of customers:
– Only 30 products (we have over 3000)
– Slow delivery (we deliver very fast and reliable)
– Service only in Finnish (we have 8 languages)
• It was not right time to do business: Business
opportunity Time window was not open yet:
– Paying online was not very common

31. EXPANSION:
CHOOSING ANOTHER SEGMENT
If we can deliver finnish products abroad, who else may be interested?

32. The business model canvas
Something
Somebody
ELSE
=Different
message!

34. MARKETING IS CONNECTED WITH
SALES
Sales?

35. Example marketing funnel
Organic Traffic SEM
Visitors to Web Site
Other Paid
lead sources
Raw Leads
Registered Visitors / coocies / emails /
retargeting data
Qualified Leads
We know this customer is about to buy
Inside Sales
Closed
Deal
Marketing
Sales
1000
-96%
40
-50%
20
20
-50%
10

36. Other Cases
Living in market turbulence:
Technological changes
Turnaround
Print media vs Digimedia
Case CITY-magazine

38. City Digital
3rd fastest growing company in
Finland
SCALABLE
DIGITAL SERVICES
Presented ad network
…
URBANITES

39. Market Opportunity, Growing Market

40. 1985-2012
Business: print magazine
Area: HKI, Tre, Oulu, Vaasa, Turku. Local big
cities
Customers:
Local, Finnish customers
Circulation 200k-450k
Unique Visitors on website 100k
Content creators: 20
2012, 2016 ->
Business: Digital media family
Area: Finland, Global
Customers: Brands, local, Finnish and
International customers and brands
Circulation 1100k
Unique visitors 8000k (8M)
Content creators: 150-200

43. Never
Give
Up!
1. Know
where you
are
2. Decide,
where you
want to go.
3. THEN
GO
4. Fail and
Learn
4. Be
better
BUILD
MEASU
RE
LEARN
How can I start from learning
Build-Measure-Learn or
Lean-Build-Measure?

44. REMEMBER.
YOUR MISSION IS NOT MONEY.
MONEY
IS RESULT
OF AWESOME EXECUTION

45. Ship in harbour may be safe,
but this is not what ship is built for.
www.improvemedia.fi
Ilkka.lavas@city.fi
Twitter: @lavas
Facebook: IlkkaLavas
Gsm +358 400 997969
Instagram:@ilkkalavas
www.life-changing-secrets.com
www.city.fi/profiilit/lavas/blogi
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ilkkaolavas